The invention relates to a method for multi-stage grinding of workpieces, especially made of hard mineral materials, as well as a vacuum table, a storage container, a stripping device and a plant for performing this method. Mineral materials, such as those used in the furniture industry, in interior design or in shop fitting, are often very hard. To maintain the desired surface properties of the components made of these materials, surface processing using a grinding method is often necessary, also frequently using several different grinding means. In the past such grinding methods were performed completely by hand, although this is very time-consuming and thus cost-intensive. The people assigned to perform the manual grinding methods must work especially rigorously and be well trained to obtain a uniform grinding result. Especially in interior design and shop fitting, in addition, a great variety of workpieces must be processed; these may either be planar in shape or have a three-dimensional shape. Therefore it is necessary from time to time to process differently made workpieces by grinding, which additionally makes it difficult to perform this process in an automated manner.